


Five Times Bucky was an Oblivious Idiot and One Time He Figured It All Out

by georges1982_96



Category: Captain America, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: BFFs, Bruce Banner Feels, Child Abuse, Gen, M/M, Past Abuse, Prostitution, Protective Bruce, Protective Steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-05
Updated: 2013-01-05
Packaged: 2017-11-23 16:48:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/624391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/georges1982_96/pseuds/georges1982_96
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Basically what it says in the title; Bruce and Steve have developed a close friendship and Bucky is suspicious it's something more. </p><p>Meanwhile, Steve doesn't seem to remember the relationship he and Bucky had had before everything changed. </p><p>Steve/Bucky Bruce/Tony, Steve Bruce friendship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Bucky was an Oblivious Idiot and One Time He Figured It All Out

**Author's Note:**

> The pairings are Steve/Bucky and Tony/Bruce, but Steve and Bruce friendship features most prominently (I don't know how that happened, but I liked their parallels).
> 
> OVERALL WARNINGS: mentions of prostitution, abuse, and rape, language, slash, bullying, homophobia, and forced medical experimentation, and pathetic attempts to throw in some 1920's slang.
> 
> I posted this all at once because I thought it was so much better cohesively, so enjoy!

               

ONE: Your mother is dead and you miss her like hell.

Bucky kicked back in his chair, resting his feet on the kitchen table and stretching his arms out to the sides as he yawned widely. Steve glanced up from his paper at him and raised an eyebrow, his gaze dropping to Bucky’s boxers disapprovingly.

               Bucky blinked at him innocently and pretended not to know what Steve was being so uptight about. He knew perfectly well that Steve didn’t approve of him walking around in his boxers, but if Thor got to do it, he didn’t see why he should have to put on pants first thing in the morning. He focused his attention on his cereal again, allowing his foot to drift towards Steve’s under the table. He curled his toes around Steve’s ankle and smirked into his bowl when Steve jerked his foot away, rolling his eyes and complaining, “Your feet are freezing.”

               Bucky shrugged and continued to slurp the milk from his bowl. He felt a small smile spread over his lips when Steve’s foot slid back under the table, not touching his, but still close.

               Bucky glanced up when footsteps approached from the hallway. He wasn’t sure who else would be up this early. He’d heard Steve moving around at seven, and he’d decided me might as well get up because he had an appointment with his S.H.I.E.L.D. appointed therapist anyway. Tony hadn’t mentioned having a meeting in the morning, Thor was barely ever up before eleven, Natasha and Clint were away on a mission, and Bruce…Bucky hadn’t quite figured Bruce out yet. Some days Bruce was already in the kitchen when he came downstairs, and Bucky got the distinct feeling the man had been there all night, staring into his cooling tea at the kitchen table.

               He was only marginally surprised, therefore, when Bruce turned the corner and stepped into the kitchen, looking more exhausted than when he’d gone to bed the night before and his hair a ruffled mess of thick curls. He mumbled a low “good morning” before making a beeline for the kettle on the stove and turning to fill it in the sink. Bucky turned to exchange a glance with Steve, but Steve’s concerned gaze was focused on the way Banner’s hands shook as he placed the kettle on the warming stovetop.

               “Morning,” Steve spoke up first, successfully drawing Bruce’s attention from the kettle. “How’d you sleep?”

               “Fine,” Bruce replied automatically. Bucky pursed his lips doubtfully; he couldn’t help but be reminded of the way Steve always had said he was fine while he was doubled over with hacking coughs. Bruce brushed his hair out of his eyes (which were their usual dark brown, Bucky noted with some relief), and rubbed his eyes tiredly. “Where are you headed this morning, Bucky?”

               Steve glanced at Bucky and opened his mouth to reply, but hesitated for a moment, unsure of whether or not Bucky wanted anyone knowing he was seeing a therapist. Bucky gave him a short nod and spooned some more cereal into his mouth. “Bucky’s meeting with his therapist.”

               Bruce leaned against the counter and offered both of them a warm, tired smile. The grip around Bucky’s stomach at the word ‘therapist’ loosened immediately. He had to stop worrying about that. This wasn’t the 1940’s anymore; plenty of people went to therapists. It was nothing to be ashamed of. He tried to repeat that over and over in his head, hoping he would eventually believe it.

               The kettle whistled and Bruce jumped a little bit, slightly startled by the noise. Steve’s eyebrows drew together more in concern, and the familiar line of worry appeared between them. Bruce lifted the kettle from the stove, overestimating his trembling hands’ ability to hold its weight; it slipped from his fingers after a few seconds and fell back onto the stovetop, landing with a loud, metallic clang. The top popped off, releasing the boiling water so it could spread over the glass top and splatter over the backsplash. Bruce hissed and drew back when the water scaled the palm of his hand, biting down hard on his lower lip. He stood there for a moment, staring at the teakettle with betrayal in his eyes and looking like he was about to shatter into a thousand pieces.

               Steve was there before Bucky could fully process what had happened, guiding Bruce to the sink with a gentle hand on his waist and turning on the cold water.

               “Leave your hand under there for a minute,” Steve commanded as he moved to the freezer. He dug through it until he found an icepack. He wrapped it in a dishcloth and returned to Bruce’s side, holding out the icepack for him to take. Bruce shut off the water and accepted the icepack gratefully, pressing it to his bright red palm; some of the tension in his shoulders drained away.

               Steve righted the kettle and peered inside it before lifting it to pour what hadn’t been spilled into Bruce’s mug. He set the kettle in the sink and grabbed a wad of paper towels to mop up the moisture on the stove. He turned to glance at Bruce over his shoulder and asked, “Is that all you’re having?”

               Bruce looked over at the mug of tea on the counter and shrugged. “I’ll have something else when we get back, maybe.”

               “I’ll hold you to that,” Steve muttered, picking up the tea and pressing it into Bruce’s good hand. Bruce smiled gratefully and clutched the ice pack tightly in his stinging palm. “Are you ready to go now? I told Bucky we would drop him off at S.H.I.E.L.D. on our way.”

               “Yeah,” Bruce replied, glancing towards the door to the hallway. “I just—“

               “Where are you two going?” Bucky asked, standing up and stretching. He smirked a little bit when Bruce politely dropped his gaze to the floor.

               Steve raised an eyebrow at Bucky and pursed his lips disapprovingly. “Bruce has to take care of something and I’m going with him.”

               “What?” Bucky asked, looking between Steve and Bruce interestedly. Steve hadn’t mentioned he was going somewhere with Bruce, and Bucky had no idea what they could be doing so early in the morning.

               Steve avoided his gaze and met Bruce’s gaze fleetingly. “Maybe if you were wearing clothes and not intentionally making him feel uncomfortable, Bruce would tell you.”

“I think I have more of a chance like this,” Bucky joked lightly, his smile widening when Bruce rolled his eyes and took a sip of tea, his gaze locked firmly on the sink.

               Steve, however, looked unamused. “Bucky, cut it out and go get ready. You’re going to be late.”

               Bucky rolled his eyes and conceded, stepping towards the kitchen door and rolling his eyes. “Fine. I’ll be right back.”

               By the time Bucky returned to the kitchen, Bruce had pulled on a thick, shapeless sweater. Bucky noted that in place of his usual long sleeve button down shirt and high-waisted pants that were at least two sizes big for him, Bruce was wearing a loose t-shirt and worn jeans that hung off his slim hips. Bucky realized that in the weeks he’d been at the Tower, he’d never seen Bruce in clothes that fit.

               “—graveyard is about thirty minutes away,” Steve was saying as he pulled on his battered leather jacket. “When did Tony say he’d be back?”

               “Around ten,” Bruce replied tersely, tugging at the loose thread of the hem of his sweater. “He wanted to be here earlier, but he…Pepper…he had to stay for a meeting, it was important.”

               “I certainly hope it was,” Steve said under his breath, turning to the table to pick up Bucky’s empty bowl. He caught sight of Bucky standing in the doorway and missed the heavy glare Bruce sent at him at his comment. Steve smiled warmly at Bucky, the same smile he’d always given him when Bucky had come back to their apartment after work, and Bucky tried to ignore the feeling of warmth that spread through his chest at the familiar grin. “Ready to go, Buck?”

               Bucky nodded, not trusting himself to speak, and followed Steve and Bruce down the hall to the elevator. He crossed his arms and huffed impatiently as they descended to the ground floor, glaring at the closed doors. Bruce glanced at him sideways and the corner of his mouth quirked up slightly. Steve was either ignoring him or oblivious; he checked his watch and ran a hand through his hair to brush the errant locks from his forehead.

               Finally, Bucky couldn’t take it anymore. He blurted out, “Why are you going to a graveyard?”

               He immediately regretted the question when the little color in Bruce’s cheeks drained from his face and Steve’s shoulders tensed. Steve opened his mouth to reply, but paused when Bruce’s hand rested lightly on his bicep. Bruce answered, his voice quiet and measured, “I’m going to visit my mother’s grave. This is the…the anniversary of her…of her death. Steve insists on coming with me.” He shot Steve an exasperated look, but Bucky could detect the underlying gratefulness easily.

               Steve stiffened and said, with the air of someone who had had this argument a million times, “You came with me when I went to visit my parents’ grave. I…I was…I wouldn’t want to go alone, why should you have to?”

               Bruce bit the inside of his cheek and rubbed the back of his neck. Steve didn’t drop his concerned, exasperated expression, and kept his eyes on Bruce, flickering restlessly over the smaller man’s features. Bruce must have felt Steve’s gaze, because he shifted uncomfortably and reluctantly lifted his gaze to meet Steve’s. Bruce’s expression softened and he nodded shortly.

              

 

               One of Stark’s cars was waiting outside for him when his appointment ended. He ducked his head against the rain and made his way to the car quickly, pulling his jacket tighter around his shoulders and grumbling to himself. He hated this, he hated these appointments, and he hated being picked up after them like a kid getting out of school. He felt as if he was being treated like a child. The only thing that made it bearable was that he could clearly see that the rest of the people living in the tower felt the same way; Clint and Natasha sneered at the restrictions put on their training and access to weapons; Tony’s lip twitched whenever Fury dragged him into S.H.I.E.L.D. to lecture him about the risks of his current experiments; Steve grimaced whenever the agents stopped to explain how weaponry worked as if Steve had never held a gun in his life; Thor could barely force a smile when he was spoken to in slow, clear tones by the agents, as if he couldn’t understand English perfectly well; and Bruce looked ready to scream every time he was dragged into the S.H.I.E.L.D. base because of the constant questions by agents with voices full of forced calm directed to the others about his mental and emotional state.

               They were unstable and sometimes volatile, Bucky couldn’t deny that, but they were adults. Clint and Natasha could handle their own training, Tony was perfectly aware of the risks of his own experiment, Steve had fought in a war, Thor spoke more articulately than anyone else Bucky had met, and Bruce had been working on controlling the Hulk for years, he wasn’t going to Hulk out because of a loud noise or someone bumping into him. Bucky was sick of watching S.H.I.E.L.D. treat them all like children who needed to be watched constantly.

               Bucky climbed into the back and slammed the door shut behind him. He wiped the raindrops from his face and glanced around the car. Steve and Bruce were sitting opposite him. Neither of them spoke when he first got in. Bruce was looking down at his hands blankly, his dark eyes rimmed with red. He was shivering, despite the thick sweater he wore and Steve’s jacket draped around his shoulders. Despite his puffy eyes, he looked more put together and like himself than he had that morning. Steve was staring out the window, his hands twisted together in his lap. Bucky was surprised to see that Steve’s cheeks were streaked with dried tear tracks. The silence in the car didn’t seem forced or awkward; it was surprisingly companionable, especially for Banner, who Bucky had come to realize could be painfully awkward sometimes.

               Steve cleared his throat after a few moments and tore his eyes from the window to smile at Bucky. “How was your appointment?”

               “Fine,” Bucky replied automatically. Steve pursed his lips into a doubtful frown, but didn’t push. “Did you make it to the graveyard before it started raining?”

               Steve glanced over at Bruce, but Bruce gave no sign he noticed. He turned back to Bucky and nodded stiffly. “Yeah.”

 

 

               Stark was in the lobby when they pulled into the front entrance, his arms crossed over his chest and looking somewhere between pissed off and worried. Steve nudged Bruce’s side with his elbow in an attempt to get Bruce’s attention. Bruce blinked and looked around the car as if he couldn’t remember getting in. He followed Steve’s gaze to Tony tapping his foot impatiently in the lobby and something in his expression shifted. He returned his gaze to Steve and said sincerely, “Thanks, Steve, for…for going out there with me. I appreciate it.”

               “Don’t worry about it,” Steve replied easily, smiling.

               The corner of Bruce’s mouth quirked upwards and he pushed open the car door to slide out. Tony’s gaze lit up when he saw Bruce, but he waited for Bruce to step inside before approaching him. He reached out to grip Bruce’s arm, but Bruce brushed him off and stepped away from him, saying something Bucky couldn’t make out.

               Tony’s face fell and he studied Bruce a moment before reaching to twine his fingers through Bruce’s. Bruce didn’t pull away this time, instead allowing Tony to maintain a grip on his hand as they made their way to the elevator, their heads bowed together as they talked quietly so Bruce’s wild curls mingled with Tony’s dark locks.

               Bucky turned to Steve and raised an eyebrow.

               Steve looked back at him blankly. “What?”

               “Nothing,” Bucky shrugged innocently. “I just…I didn’t realize that you and Banner were so close.”

               “Bruce is a good man,” Steve replied suspiciously, not sure of where this was going. “He’s a friend.”

               “A friend?” Bucky repeated, allowing the smallest amount of doubt to creep into his tone. He tried to ignore the jealousy that tore at his stomach. “You were pretty insistent on going with him.”

               Steve’s upper lip twitched ever so slightly, and Bucky knew he’d hit a sore spot. “You didn’t read about Bruce’s childhood or his family in his file, did you?”

               “There was nothing about him until he turned into the Hulk,” Bucky replied, his eyebrows drawing together.

               Steve tilted his head to the side and let out a long sigh. “There’s a reason for that.”

 

 

               Bucky finally gave up on pestering Steve for more information when Steve slammed his bedroom door in his face and locked it, yelling angrily that it was “none of your business, Bucky, just leave it alone.”

 

TWO: They only want you for your powers

               Bucky was woken up a few weeks later by alarms screeching through the tower at 4 a.m. He threw off his blankets and yanked his bedside drawer open to grab he gun he kept stored in it. He bolted out of his room, across the hall, and pounded on Steve’s door frantically. The door was thrown open to reveal Steve standing there in a white t-shirt and loose flannel pajama pants, holding his shield up defensively.

               When he saw it was only Bucky, he dropped the shield a few inches and glanced up and down the hallway to assess any signs of a threat. “What’s going on?”

               “I don’t know!” Bucky snapped, automatically turning to face the direction Steve wasn’t so they were standing back to back. “I just heard—“

               “If I could interrupt,” a calm, slightly metallic voice filled the hallway and Bucky jumped, lifting his gun and aiming it at the walls. Steve’s hand rested on the crook of his elbow, silently reassuring him that they were fine, and he remembered that it was just JARVIS. Bucky let out a deep breath and lowered his gun, forcing himself to relax and think around the rush of adrenaline in ears. “It seems there are intruders in Dr. Banner’s lab.”

               Bucky felt Steve’s shoulders tense against his back. The solid warmth of Steve’s body was suddenly gone and his footsteps were moving down the hall towards the stairway. Bucky fell into step behind him, his own concern growing with every moment. The Tower was outfitted with a ridiculous amount of security. Tony had attempted to explain it all to him when he’d first moved in, but he couldn’t keep up with the sheer mass of precautions. It should have been virtually impossible for someone to break in.

               “Who’s in there, JARVIS?” Steve asked abruptly, jerking open the door to the stairs and taking them four at a time. Bucky struggled to keep up, because as strong as he’d become, he wasn’t a super soldier, and he didn’t want to break his ankles jumping down full flights of stairs after his best friend.

               “It seems to be General Ross and a small group of his men, sir,” JARVIS replied. If Bucky didn’t know any better, he’d say JARVIS almost sounded concerned. “They have breached security somehow, and have overridden my security protocol.”

               “Where are the others?” Steve burst through the door to the second floor and sprinted to the door to Bruce’s lab. Bucky managed to keep up with him, but just barely. Steve was too wrapped up in getting to the lab to notice Bucky’s heavy breathing and struggles to keep up with him.

               “Mr. Stark is already in the lab, and Thor, Agent Barton, and Agent Romanov are on their way,” JARVIS replied. Steve yanked the door open so roughly the top hinge bent and cracked the frame.

               Bucky ran in to the lab after Steve and skidded to a stop, shocked and confused by the scene before him. One wall had been completely blown away and left a gaping hole that let the cold night air gust through the brightly lit lab. Tony was standing in the middle of the lab, staring blankly at a crumpled ball of fabric in his hands. There was no sign of Bruce, and there was no sign of anyone else.

               Steve strode across the room towards Tony, opening his mouth to fire off all of the questions flying around in his mind, but froze when he caught sight of something obscured from Bucky’s sight by the counter.

               Bucky covered the distance between himself in Steve in a few long strides. He stopped when he was next to his best friend and followed his gaze to the side of the counter. His stomach dropped when he saw what Steve was looking at. The shiny steel side of the counter was streaked with blood. A portion of a handprint was painted in the red liquid on the counter, and again on the plain tile of the floor. Long streaks of blood ran down the side of the counter and across the floor. They stopped about halfway to the hole where the wall had been blown away.

               Bucky took a step forward to examine the blood more closely, but found himself being yanked back by Steve’s tight grip on his arm. Steve pulled him back further and warned him softly, “Don’t touch it. I think it would be best if you and Tony met the others upstairs. I’ll clean up down here.”

               “Clean up?” Tony snorted, his fingers curling more tightly around the torn cloth in his hands. “Bruce is missing, being held captive by the sadistic sonofabitch, and you’re worried about cleaning up?”

               “You think he wants you around his blood?” Steve demanded. “You’ll be no help to him if you die of radiation poisoning. Get upstairs, now. You, too, Bucky.”

               “What about you?” Bucky asked, hesitating in his retreat and looking up at Steve, concerned.

               Steve smiled reassuringly and waved off his concern. “It doesn’t affect me that same way. I’ll be up in a few minutes and we’ll figure out a plan of action.” He glanced back over at Tony, who was staring at the drying blood with blank, wide eyes, and repeated, his voice softer than it had been before, “It’s dangerous, Tony. Bruce knows that, he wouldn’t want you near it.”

               Tony’s lips pursed in a thin line and his expression hardened. He straightened up and clutched the shreds of fabric to his chest. He turned on his heel without a word and disappeared through the door of the lab and up the stairs.

               Bucky’s eyes met Steve’s for a moment, and he was taken aback by the anger and fear warring with each other in Steve’s eyes. “Steve—“

               “Beat it, Bucky,” Steve said tersely, turning to look at the hole in the wall. “I’ll be up in a minute.”

 

 

               “Someone needs to get Fury on the phone,” Clint said immediately when Bucky had finished explaining the situation. They were gathered around the kitchen table, all of them in their pajamas with the exception of Tony, who must have been up working.

               Tony’s lip twitched and his hands tightened on the edge of the table. “Why, so he can tell us that he can’t interfere with the Army because of the interdepartmental politics and give us some bullshit line about Bruce technically being the Army’s property?”

               “So he can help us find where they’re keeping Bruce,” Clint replied through gritted teeth, rising halfway from his seat, gripping the edge of the table so hard his knuckles were white.

Natasha glanced at him, reading his expression and body language before speaking up. “I agree with Clint. Fury can be difficult to deal with, but he has more information on Ross than we do. He could have taken Bruce dozens of different locations.”

Tony’s eyes flashed and he whipped his phone out of his back pocket. He started tapping away on the screen quickly, his face illuminated in the dim light of the kitchen. The lines of worry creasing his forehead and the skin between his eyebrows stood out starkly against his pale skin in the bright light of the screen.

“What are you doing?” Natasha asked, sounding somewhere between irritated and curious, and leaned to peer over Tony’s shoulder. Thor blinked heavily, still not fully awake, and watched Tony’s fingers fly over the phone screen with half lidded eyes.

Tony’s lips pursed together and he tapped his fingers impatiently on the table, scrutinizing his phone. “I’m activating the tracker on Bruce.”

“Tracker?” Clint repeated incredulously, leaning forward with his elbows on the table. “You put a tracker on him?”

“I have a tracker on all of you,” Tony replied dismissively. His phone beeped loudly a moment later, cutting off the rising protests from the others at the table. Tony sprang to his feet, knocking his chair backwards onto the kitchen floor, and a successful grin flashed across his face. “I’ve got him.”

 

 

Bucky was so caught up in the whirlwind of panic, determination, and fury at one of their own being taken from under their noses that he didn’t really think about what they were doing until he and Steve were standing outside a military base set off the coast of New York City.

He froze and dug his heels into the ground, forcing Steve to stop as well. Steve turned to Bucky and raised his eyebrows at him. “What?”

“Steve, this is a military base,” Bucky hissed, glaring up at his friend. “The people that took Bruce are in the Army. If they’re taking him, then they probably have a reason.”

Steve sucked in a deep breath and glanced up towards the roof of the Army base, searching for any sign of Clint. “It’s more complicated than that, Buck. The Army…it’s not the same as when you and I joined.”

“What do you mean?” Bucky demanded, frustrated with his lack of understanding. “They used to have you come in and help on missions. They used you after they injected you with that stuff, and you never seemed—“

“I wanted to help,” Steve replied through gritted teeth. His fingers dug into the log they were crouching behind, his fingernails splintering the wood. “It’s not like that for him.”

A body fell from the roof of the base and landed on the ground with a dull thump, an arrow sticking out of its back. Steve leapt over the log and took off toward the stone wall of the heavily fortified building, not bothering to check if Bucky was following. Bucky hesitated for a moment, but took off after him.

His trust in Steve’s judgment would have to be enough for now.

 

 

Bucky and Steve ran into Natasha in a hallway deep inside the building. Her lip was split and she was moving her wrist tenderly, but otherwise seemed unharmed. She came to a stop a few feet away from them and asked breathlessly, “Have you seen Clint?”

“Last I saw him, he was on the roof,” Steve replied, his desperate gaze moving from Natasha’s face to the hallway lined with doors. When Natasha didn’t reply right away, he tore his eyes from the hallway to look back at her and added firmly, “He was fine, Natasha.”

Natasha nodded sharply, accepting Steve’s reassurance, and took of down the hallway, motioning for them to follow. “According to Tony, they’re keeping Bruce on this floor. He couldn’t get an exact location, but—“

“SHUT THE FUCK UP, FREAK!” a deep male voice resounded through the hallway from behind one of the doors towards the end of the hall. The sound of a hand striking someone across the face was muffled by the thick metal door, but Bucky still recognized it with a sickening certainty.

Steve tensed and made a beeline for the second door down on the right side of the hall. He pressed himself to the wall next to it and cocked his head to the side, listening carefully. Natasha and Bucky exchanged a look of understanding and moved to stand on the opposite side of the door. Steve’s expression darkened and he nodded at Bucky, confirming that this was the room Bruce was trapped inside.

Natasha reached for the knob and whipped the door open, darting inside the room and firing off two shots before Steve or Bucky had managed to get into the room behind her. Bucky hadn’t made it three steps before he found himself being thrown back against the wall with Steve wrapped around him and his shield held in front of them both. Bucky felt more than heard the ping of four bullets deflecting off the metal of the shield, and tried to not be distracted by the familiar feeling of Steve’s arms around him (thought they were significantly more well-muscled than he remembered) and his warm breath on the back of Bucky’s neck. Now wasn’t the time.

Steve let Bucky go and Bucky took the split second reprieve to evaluate the situation. The room was larger than Bucky had expected it to be, and was lined with tables filled with instruments that Bucky didn’t want to think about the use of. A table was set up in the center of the room as well, and Bucky had to force himself not to look at it yet, knowing without looking that that’s where Bruce was being held. Four men had been stationed in the room; Natasha had managed to knock two of them unconscious, and had one of the others in a painful looking headlock. Bucky felt movement behind him and whipped around in time to deliver a heavy blow to the man’s face. The guy grunted and swung his foot into Bucky’s knees, taking the other man down with him. Bucky managed to land on top of the man and get a firm grip around his neck. He used the hold to lift the man slightly off the ground before slamming his head against the concrete, hard. The man’s body went limp and Bucky rose to his feet, brushing his hands off on his thighs. Steve was leaning over the table in the center of the room, speaking softly and looking down at Bruce’s shaking form with concern and badly suppressed anger flashing in his eyes.

Bucky strode to Steve’s side so he could get a better look at Bruce and help get him out of there as soon as possible. What he saw sucked the air from his chest and left no doubt in his mind that Steve was right; things now weren’t the same as they had been.

Bruce was strapped down to the table securely with metal bonds that wrapped tightly around his wrists, ankles, chest, stomach, and thighs; Bucky could see where blood was seeping out from under the manacles where they cut into Bruce’s pale skin. His clothes were torn and shredded, and Bucky recognized the shreds of his shirt that had been ripped away and discarded on the floor next to the table as the same fabric Tony had been clutching in the lab. There was barely an inch of exposed skin that wasn’t covered in dark bruises or angry looking cuts and welts. Burns covered his stomach and Bucky could make out perfectly circular marks on his skin where it looked like electrodes had been hooked up to his chest, sides, and neck. Bucky tried to hide the shudder that ran through his body; he remembered the feeling of being hooked up by those things to a machine that had sent electricity coursing through his body, and the shocks had always left him so disoriented he couldn’t remember which way was up and which was down. The most disturbing things, however, was Bruce’s right elbow.

At least six IV lines were stuck into the crook of the elbow, pumping Bruce full of unidentifiable fluids. Either they’d had a hard time finding a vein, or the lines had been taken out and put back in various times, because the pale, vulnerable skin was swollen and bruised painfully, and peppered with small needle marks. Some of them were still leaking thin streams of blood and the remnants of whatever they were pumping through his veins, and some of them had scabbed over. The skin looked violently red and tender, and Bucky winced at the thought of having needles stabbed into such aggravated skin.

Bruce was, miraculously, awake. His eyes were clouded and foggy, but when he saw Steve standing over him they flashed with vague recognition. He tugged uselessly against his bonds and mumbled, confused, “Steve?”

“Yeah, it’s me, Bruce,” Steve replied, pausing in his examination of the metal bonds to rest a reassuring hand on Bruce’s shoulder. Bruce flinched from the touch. A pained grimace crossed his face, as if Steve’s touch had burned him. Steve’s jaw tightened and he returned his attention to the bonds. “We’re going to get you out of here.”

“T’ny..?” Bruce asked, his voice hoarse and breaking. He struggled to keep his eyes open as he watched Steve, waiting for a response. Bucky was alarmed by Bruce’s eyes. They weren’t green, but they weren’t brown; they were a murky mixture of both.

Steve nodded and gave a strained smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “He and Thor are keeping them occupied outside.” Steve turned to Bucky, his eyes serious and solemn. “I’m going to try to tear the cuffs off. I don’t know how it will…” Steve bit his lip and looked down at Bruce, who had clenched his eyes shut as he rode out a wave of pain. “Are you..? Is the Hulk..?”

Bruce turned his head to rub his nose against his bare shoulder, his mouth set in a thin line. When he replied, his ragged voice was quiet and full of forced control. “Whatever they’re pumping into me, it won’t let me transform.”

“So if we take it out..?” Bucky trailed off, allowing Bruce a moment to answer.

Bruce chewed on his bleeding, swollen bottom lip, considering, before responding slowly, “I don’t think…I couldn’t transform even without them…They made me…” a shudder ran through his body, cutting him off. He sucked in a deep breath before finishing softly, “I…I should be fine.”

Bucky’s heart leapt to his throat and he exchanged a glance with Steve. He didn’t know what that meant, and judging by the confusion in Steve’s eyes, neither did he. He reached out to begin carefully removing the IVs from Bruce’s arm. Judging by the tensing of Bruce’s jaw, it hurt like hell to have them being pulled out of his tender, burning skin, even if Bucky was being as gentle as he could. He glanced up and noticed Steve’s hand ghosting through Bruce’s tangled, sweaty curls. Bucky returned to the task of removing the needles, trying to ignore the sudden tightness on his chest.

Steve braced himself and dug his fingers under the metal strap binding Bruce’s wrist to the table. He tried to block out Bruce’s low wince and ignore the feeling of the torn, raw skin against his fingers under the bonds. He began to pry the metal band from where it was melded to the table, letting out a barely audible sigh of relief when he felt it give under his grip. He tore the strap from the table and tossed it to the side. He met Bucky’s gaze and nodded shortly. “I’ll get him out. You and Natasha contact Tony, Clint, and Thor and let them know we’ve got him.”

Natasha nodded and contacted the others on her radio to let them know they’d found Bruce. Steve managed to tear away the rest of the metal straps pinning Bruce to the table and helped him sit up by placing one hand on his chest and the other on the small of his back. Bruce cringed away from Steve’s touch, but Steve wouldn’t allow him to pull away completely. Bruce turned so his feet hung off the edge of the table and buried his face in his hands for a moment, his chest heaving under Steve’s hand. Steve moved his hands to grip Bruce’s shoulders gently and asked, “Can you walk?”

“I certainly hope not.”

Bruce flinched so hard he would have toppled off the table if Steve hadn’t caught him around the waist and lifted him back onto the tabletop, keeping a steadying, cautionary grip on Bruce’s hips in case he fell again.

Bucky whirled around in time to see a sturdy looking man in a general’s uniform step into the room, followed by a small knot of heavily armed soldiers. He cursed under his breath and pulled his gun to aim it at the man, Bruce’s reaction confirming this man as Ross.

Ross didn’t seem concerned with the gun being aimed at him. He gave Bucky an amused glance and let his gaze trail to where Steve was holding Bruce up. A smiled curled across his lips and he clapped slowly, mockingly, shattering the tense silence in the room. “Well, well, well. I have to say I’m impressed you’ve made it this far, Captain.”

“You thought we’d just leave him here?” Steve snapped. Bucky glanced around the room and realized that Natasha was nowhere to be seen. He hoped fervently that that bode well for them, because he wasn’t sure he and Steve could take out Ross and all of his men, and Bruce didn’t look like he could stand on his own, let alone defend himself.

“I figured you’d come,” Ross replied, his dark eyes darting from the fresh bruise on Bruce’s cheek to the raw wounds around his wrists and thighs. “He’s a valuable asset to anyone who can unlock his genetic code. I’m sure Stark is working to replicate it himself; it would no doubt be worth a lot of money.”

Steve’s upper lip curled with disgust and his fingers dug into Bruce’s sides. “He isn’t an object.”

“He’s a beast,” Ross snarled back. “And he belongs to the Army. I would appreciate it, Captain, if you let him go.”

“He doesn’t belong to anyone,” Steve said through gritted teeth. Bruce winced and shrank away from Steve’s tightening grip on his bruised ribs. Steve loosened his grip and grimaced apologetically.

“He’s not even human, not anymore,” Ross took a few threatening steps towards Steve and Bruce, his solider flanking him on either side protectively. “He’s got you all fooled into thinking he is, but there’s nothing human left in him. He doesn’t feel, he doesn’t care about anyone, and all he wants to do is hurt and kill. He. Is. An. Animal.”

Bucky could see Bruce’s fingers digging into the star on the chest of Steve’s blue suit, curling his fingers into the fabric more tightly with every word. Steve opened his mouth to reply, looking absolutely livid, but suddenly paused, his eyes flickering up to the ceiling and widening with surprise. He slipped his arms completely around Bruce’s waist and pulled the injured man against his chest, lifting him off the table easily before dropping to the ground and rolling under the table. He was careful to end up with Bruce under him so he could hunch over Bruce’s vulnerable body protectively as the ceiling caved in above them.

Bucky stumbled back a few steps, but he was well out of range of the falling rubble. Most of Ross’s men however, were not. The ones that weren’t knocked out by the falling concrete were taken down before they had time to reorient themselves by Natasha, who had appeared from somewhere above Bucky where she must have been perched in the rafters. Ross was left standing alone, surrounded by his unconscious men and piles of rubble. He lifted his gaze to the hole in the ceiling and set his jaw, sneering angrily, “Stark.”

“This is the last time, Ross,” Tony said, his voice seething with anger. He raised a hand and the center of his palm filled with a ball of bright blue light. “This is the last time you get your disgusting hands on him, you fucking bastard.”

“I figured you would show up,” Ross sneered at Tony with disgust. “He’s a valuable resource, right? You’ve all given him an inflated sense of importance, but let’s be realistic; if he wasn’t the Hulk, if he hadn’t gotten caught in that blast, none of you would have cared about what happens to him.”

“I really suggest you shut the fuck up,” Tony growled lowly, the blue light in the palm of the suit intensifying into an almost white color. “Unless you want me to make this more painful than it has to be.”

Inexplicably, Ross smiled. He raised his hands so they were level with his chest, palms out, and raised an eyebrow at Tony. “I didn’t realize how protective you were over your fuck toys.”

The room was suddenly flooded with light, and Bucky stumbled back a few steps, covering his eyes with his forearms.

When Bucky’s eyes had adjusted to the light, he lowered his arm to see a man in a dark suit and sunglasses standing in the doorway as agents dressed in what Bucky had learned to recognize as S.H.I.E.L.D. uniforms poured in around him.

 

 

Bucky tapped his foot impatiently and looked up at the door for the third time in the past five minutes. Coulson had told them to wait in Fury’s office because he wanted to talk to them before they left for the Tower. He’d added that Fury might be awhile, considering he was running interference with the Army, trying to intimidate General Ross into leaving Bruce alone (for now at least), and convince him not press any charges against the rest of them.

Steve shifted his weight in the chair next to Bucky and crossed his arms over his chest uncomfortably, turning to check on Bruce.

Bruce was hunched over in a chair between Steve and Tony, his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands, and his fingers tugging gently at his wild curls. He’d been patched up and cleared by the S.H.I.E.L.D. med bay, but he didn’t look so good. It had been slightly surreal watching the doctors work on bandaging Bruce’s wounds while they were dressed in full body radiation suits. Bruce looked beyond miserable stretched out on the sterile metal table in the med bay while the men and women in the bulky white suits poked and prodded at him. Steve was the only one allowed in, after assuring them that the radiation wouldn’t affect him. He’d hovered next to the gurney over Bruce, watching the medical personnel bandage Bruce’s wrists and ankles. Bucky could tell Bruce was becoming increasingly uncomfortable; he was barely able to keep from flinching away when they moved to bandage the raw wounds on his thighs. A low whimper escaped his lips when one of the doctors gripped his arm to clean up the mess in the crook of his elbow. Steve was at his side immediately, reaching out to grip Bruce’s hand in his own. Bruce forced himself to relax, tightening his grip on Steve’s hand to anchor himself as the doctor carefully cleaned the crook of his elbow, working quickly and remaining clinically detached.

“How’re you doing?” Tony leaned forward so his mouth was close to Bruce’s ear when he spoke. Bruce was sitting close to Tony’s side, so their thighs, hips, and shoulders were pressed together. Tony’s hand hesitantly stole to Bruce’s waist to tug him closer. “We don’t have to wait here just because Fury’s on some power trip…”

“It’s fine, Tony,” despite his reassurance, Bruce’s voice was ragged and hoarse. “I’m fine.”

Bucky could feel how tense Steve was next to him, and he reached over to rest a hand on Steve’s thigh, squeezing reassuringly. That Steve allowed him to touch him like that while other people were around to see it was a testament to how distracted Steve was.

“Take this, Doctor,” Thor rose from his seat and reached over Bruce to drape his heavy cloak around the smaller man’s shoulders. Bruce managed a grateful smile at Thor and tugged the cloak around himself, struggling to suppress the shivering and shudders running through his body. They’d given him a thin shirt and loose pants in the med bay that did little to help the chills deep chill that had settled in his bones.

Fury burst through the doors less than five minutes later, tense and radiating anger. Coulson was right behind him to shut the doors carefully. Fury began speaking before he had finished crossing the room, his voice booming with barely contained anger. “What the hell were you all thinking? Going into an army base, destroying the building, harming countless officers who were just following their orders—“

“Ross broke into the Tower and kidnapped Bruce,” Clint cut Fury off before he could go on and glared up at his boss. “What were we supposed to do?”

“You were supposed to contact me so we could work something out that didn’t involve trespassing of federal property,” Fury growled.

“There was no time to spare,” Thor spoke up to help explain, looking up at Fury earnestly through tendrils of mussed blond hair. “Banner was being hurt by those men. It was imperative—“

“Did you know for a fact that Banner was in any imminent danger when you set out on your stupid-ass plan to rescue him?” Fury demanded.

No one replied, but Bucky could sense the tension in the others.

Finally, Tony broke the silence, his voice hostile and tinged with disbelief. “He was with Ross; I think it was pretty damn fair to assume he hadn’t checked Bruce into a five star hotel.”

“That does not give you the right or the clearance to storm an Army base,” Fury said firmly, slamming his hands down on his desktop. “I understand your concern, but I cannot cover your asses every time you all decide break into a secure government facility.”

“What, you would rather we’d just left him there?” Clint asked incredulously. “Screw protocol; did you see what that bastard did to Bruce? Look at him and tell me we should have waited, Fury.”

Fury paused and his good eye fell on Bruce’s hunched form. His expression shifted to something less harsh and he pressed his lips together firmly before replying reluctantly, “I’m sorry this happened. But that doesn’t change the fact that now we have to deal with it. Which means you all have a hell of a lot of paperwork to do.”

 

 

Bucky cursed under his breath and dropped his pen onto the top sheet of his stack of paper work, flexing and clenching his fingers. His hand was cramping, and he was only about halfway through the stack Fury had given him. Steve glanced up at him and gave him a small, reserved smile.

Bucky found himself smiling back despite the sharp pain in his fingers from holding the pen all afternoon. He leaned back in his chair and cracked his knuckles. “So you all have had a problem with breaking into government facilities before?”

Steve tilted his head to the side and smiled sheepishly. “We’ve had some…situations where it was necessary.”

“I can’t say I’m surprised,” Bucky grinned jokingly. “After you infiltrated the Hydra base alone and against orders, I guess I should have expected this.”

“You were in there,” Steve said simply, setting aside a portion of his paperwork. “I didn’t have a choice.”

Bucky bit his bottom lip and examined Steve for a moment, watched the way his Adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed, his slim fingers flipping through the pages, his bright blue eyes flickering over the paperwork as he read, but had to look away. Sometimes, he looked at Steve and saw the scrawny kid he’s fallen head over heels for, and it made his chest ache. He’d been back for over two months and Steve hadn’t given any indication that he wanted to pursue the relationship they’d had Before. Maybe he’d changed his mind, maybe he didn’t remember their lives the way Bucky did, or maybe he’d found someone else; the prospects made Bucky’s stomach drop.

He sighed and looked up from his paperwork, bracing himself to broach the subject with Steve, but paused when he realized Steve’s attention was focused past his shoulder on something in the living room.

Bruce was standing in the center of the room, looking marginally better than when Tony had forced him into their room to get some sleep, but still pretty wiped out and hunched with pain. The bandages on his wrists peeked out from the cuffs of his thick sweater, and he plucked at the edge of them nervously. He smiled weakly when he saw Steve and Bucky watching him and approached the table, his steps still slightly uncertain. “Do either of you have the paperwork I’m supposed to be working on?”

“I gave it to Tony,” Steve replied. “He’s working on it now.”

Bruce winced and rubbed the back of his neck, ducking his head so his loose curls fell into his face and hid his eyes. “Listen, you guys…I’m sorry about all this.”

Steve raised an eyebrow incredulously. “You’re apologizing.”

Bruce shrugged and gave them a painfully fake smile. “I guess you have a point.”

He turned to leave, cutting though the living room towards the opposite hall, but Steve was suddenly there in his path, stopping him with a hand on his chest before could escape into the hall. Steve met Bruce’s eyes solemnly and said firmly, “We are not only keeping you around for the Hulk.”

Bruce flinched slightly and blinked up at Steve, surprised. His mouth opened and closed a few times, but no words came out.

Steve squeezed his shoulder tightly and let his hands fall to Bruce’s sides. “Ross doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

Bucky raised his eyebrows when Steve pulled Bruce into an embrace and held him tightly for a few moments. Bruce seemed shocked at first, but relaxed slightly and loosely wrapped his arms around Steve’s waist. He let out a long sigh, resting his forehead against Steve’s chest, and said softly, “Thank you.”

 

THREE: SHIELD doesn’t care about anything besides covering their own ass.

Bucky shifted uncomfortably and tugged at the collar of his suit with the hand that wasn’t holding the champagne glass. Steve hovered next to him, looking as uncomfortable as Bucky felt. Bucky leaned over to whisper so the crowds around them couldn’t hear, “How long is this thing?”

“Fury wanted us to stay until ten,” Steve replied out of the corner of his mouth through a thin smile.

Bucky moaned softly into his glass. Steve quirked an eyebrow in agreement, but chastised him lightly, “It’s the least we can do, Bucky. These are the people who clean up our mess after missions.” Steve smiled brightly at a small group of people across the room. “And the people who fund those people.”

               Bucky shrugged and tried to keep his upper lip from curling. These parties and functions were a necessary evil, and Bucky was coming to realize that as much as they smiled and chatted, the others hated them just as much as he did.

               Bucky took a sip of the wine he’d been given, crinkling his nose with distaste at the fruity liquid that coated his tongue. Steve watched his expression with faint amusement and held out his glass to Bucky’s to tap their rims together. Bucky noticed with jealously that Steve had somehow just gotten water. “Not exactly bathtub gin, huh?”

               Bucky clinked his glass with Steve’s, lifting his gaze to meet Steve’s and not looking away as he replied softly, “I think I prefer the gin.”

               Steve bit his lip and smiled, a wide, open, tender smile that sent Bucky’s heart into his throat because that was how he remembered Steve looking at him.

               A man bumped into Steve, catching Steve’s attention, and the moment was gone, leaving Bucky’s feeling slightly breathless. He ducked his head and tried to regain his composure without Steve noticing.

               “Steve Rogers?” the man who had bumped into Steve paused and smiled at him. Bucky had to take a second to contain his laughter, because this guy was as big as Steve; Bucky rarely saw anyone who could compare with Steve since he’d been injected with the serum. He was just as tall, and maybe even a little broader in the shoulders. Bucky had never met him, but he had to be one of the nameless S.H.I.E.L.D. agents that he’d seen wandering around the base. “Captain America?”

               “That’s me,” Steve smiled brightly and Bucky almost bought it for a second, but he saw the almost imperceptible way Steve’s left hand curled into a loose fist.

               “It’s great to meet you,” the man reached out to shake Steve’s hand. Steve took the man’s hand politely and shook it firmly. He tried to take his hand back, but the man didn’t let go immediately, instead holding on to Steve’s hand as he spoke. “I’ve seen you around the base, but I’ve never gotten a chance to talk to you before.”

               “Pleased to meet you, too,” Steve forced a smile and gently tugged his hand from the man’s grasp. “Yeah, sorry about that. Usually when we’re here, we’re pretty busy with other things. I haven’t met too many of you yet.”

               “It’s an honor, sir, trust me,” the man smiled at Steve and paused for a moment before asking hesitantly. “You…you don’t have a minute, do you? I just…my daughter is a huge fan, and I was hoping you could sign one of her comic book for her. If it’s not too much trouble.”

               “Of course not,” Steve replied reflexively, relaxing a little bit. “Do you have a pen?”

               The man patted his pockets to locate a pen, but couldn’t seem to find one. “You know, my office is right down the hall. If you have a minute we could just run down there and be back before Fury notices.”

               Steve shifted his weight uncomfortably, his eyes flickering over the Bucky, who shrugged. “I…I suppose that’s alright.”

               Bucky took Steve’s glass and watched them disappear into the hallway while Fury was busy talking to a small group of people near the food table. Bucky huffed impatiently; now he was left standing there with both their glasses, looking like a loner. Some best friend he had.

               “Having a good time?”

               Bucky was slightly startled by Bruce’s voice coming from right next to him. Bruce had managed to sneak up on Bucky quite a few times in the past few months; he could move without making noise. Bucky suspected that had come in handy while he was on the run. He looked down at Bruce, who had also managed to find water, and snorted. “You slay me, Doctor Banner.”

               Bruce gave him a small, lopsided smile. “I thought so. I could feel how uncomfortable you were from across the room.”

               “I’m not used to getting all dolled up and going to events like this,” Bucky tugged at the hem of his suit jacket. “I’m more of a gin mill type of guy myself.” He glanced at Bruce, noting the dark suit the man was wearing that actually fit him. Bucky was a little surprised at how slim Bruce was. He was usually swimming in his baggy shirts and ill-fitting pants that hung off his lithe frame; he was lost in all the fabric. Tony must have forced Bruce to let him buy him a suit and get it tailored; Bucky was vaguely relieved he hadn’t been caught in the cross fire of that fight. He’d witnessed Tony and Bruce arguing before, and it wasn’t pretty. “What about you?”

               Bruce considered seriously a moment before replying, “I’d rather be back in Calcutta, honestly.”

               A small smile stole across Bucky’s face and he grinned against the rim of his glass. “I think Tony’s the only one who really likes these things.”

               Bruce shrugged noncommittally, his gaze flickering to where Tony was undoubtedly regaling a group of women with some story or another of his greatness. “I thought you’d be sticking close to Steve.”

               Bucky’s gaze sliced through Bruce and he asked harshly, “You think I can’t handle myself around these people?”

               Bruce didn’t seem fazed by Bucky’s vicious glare, but Bucky supposed Bruce wasn’t fazed by much; he could transform into a giant green rage monster in the blink of an eye. He calmly took a sip of water and replied, “That’s not what I meant. I just thought you’d prefer Steve’s company over the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, as interesting and fun as they are.”

               “Oh,” Bucky deflated a little bit and ran a hand through his hair, embarrassed at his outburst. “I…I didn’t…He had something to take care of, but he should be back soon.”

               Bucky glanced up at the clock and realized that Steve had been gone for a while. He forced himself not to worry; Steve wasn’t a ninety-pound kid anymore. He was Captain America, and he could damn well handle himself.

               Bruce followed his gaze and commented lightly, without looking at Bucky, “Not everything someone says is supposed to insinuate that you can’t control yourself.” Bucky pursed his lips and was about to reply when Bruce held up his hand and added quickly, “I’m not trying to be condescending. I’m speaking from personal experience.”

               Bucky let out a slow breath through his nose and nodded, considering. He had been getting defensive a lot lately (not that Steve would call him on it). He couldn’t help but read into everything people said to him, searching for some indication that they thought he was going to snap again and try to kill them all again. He figured that if anyone knew a thing or two about being tiptoed around, it would be Bruce Banner.

               “How long has Steve been gone?” Bruce asked, recapturing Bucky’s attention and pulling him from his thoughts.

               Bucky sucked on his teeth and squinted at the clock. “Around ten minutes.”

               Bruce’s eyebrows drew together. “What is he doing?”

               “Signing something for one of the agents,” Bucky setting the two glasses down on a nearby table and glanced back at Bruce. “He said his office was right down the hall.”

               Bruce set his glass down and pursed his lips into a thin line. “Lead the way.”

 

 

 

               Thor and Natasha caught sight of Bruce and Bucky slipping out of the room and jumped at the chance to escape their conversation with the head of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s finance department.

               “What’s going on?” Natasha asked, noting the tension in Bucky’s shoulders and the clench of Bruce’s jaw.

               “Steve left with an agent about ten minutes ago,” Bucky replied matter-of-factly, leading the rest of them down the hall in the direction he’d seen Steve disappear. “It was a big guy, dark hair. He was as big as Steve, said he wanted Steve to sign something for his kid.”

               Natasha pursed her lips and thought for a moment, going through her mental catalogue of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. “There are only a few guys as big as Steve working down here, but only one has an office down this way. I think it’s number 203.” She paused and her gaze flickered to Bucky, her eye flashing warningly. “The guy’s kind of a creep.”

               “Steve seemed a little put off by him,” Bucky admitted reluctantly, quickening his pace.

               Natasha stopped walking and turned back towards the room they’d come from. “I’ll get the others. Just in case.”

               As they passed office 194, Bucky heard Steve’s voice from further down the hall. “Sir, I really don’t think—“

               Bucky skidded to a halt outside the office door marked 203 and motioned for the others to be quiet so he could listen to evaluate if Steve needed help or if he was fine.

               “…appropriate,” Steve was saying, his voice dripping with discomfort and laced with steel. “I’m not interested.”

               “Did I ask you if you were interested?” the man’s gruff voice demanded. Bucky heard the unmistakable sound of the safety of a gun being taken off. Bucky saw red; it didn’t matter whether or not Steve was perfectly capable of disarming the man. The fact that he pulled a gun in the first place made Bucky’s blood boil.

               It was suspiciously quiet behind the door for a moment, and Bucky felt like his heart was going to pound out of his chest. He was tempted to throw the door open, but he needed a moment to decide how to handle this best from a strategic standpoint.

               The silence was broken by Thor, asking Bruce innocently in his booming voice, “Is the Captain under some sort of threat, Doctor?”

               A muffled curse came from behind the door, followed by the sound of a body hitting something solid. Bucky flung the door open, drawing his gun from where he had it hidden under his jacket in a shoulder holster, and aimed it at the man who was currently shoving an advanced- looking revolver against his best friend’s temple. Steve gripped the man’s arm and managed to get his shoulder under his armpit. He pitched himself forward, easily flipping the man onto his back and getting away from his hold.

               The man, however, wasn’t done. He managed to roll and land on the balls of his feet when Steve threw him and sprang up again, grabbing Bruce before he could move away and forcing the much smaller man to his knees. The man shoved the gun into Bruce’s mouth and jerked him away from Bucky, Steve, and Thor.

               Steve froze and held up a hand. “Sir, you really don’t want to do that.”

               “You’re in no position to tell me what I want,” the man snarled, yanking Bruce back with a hand buried in his thick curls. Bruce grimaced around the barrel of the gun when the thick fingers pulled at his hair. “And you know what I want. So you can ask your friends to leave and we can finish this privately, or I can put a bullet through his head. Your choice.”

               Steve met Bruce’s gaze and held it for a few moments, reading the mixture of fear and acceptance in his eyes. Bucky had no idea what the hell to do. A bullet couldn’t kill Bruce like it could Steve, could it? He wasn’t sure. Bruce could transform, but he would probably destroy the place and potentially cause more harm than good to the people in it.

               A muscle in Steve’s jaw twitched and he lifted his gaze from Bruce to the man holding him. “Fine. Let him go, let them all go, and I won’t breathe a word.”

               The man scrutinized Steve, calculatingly. Finally, he nodded and his shoulders relaxed. “I know you won’t.”

               Steve’s body was so tense Bucky could see his muscles bunching up under the skin. He flickered his gaze over Steve, trying to figure out what the hell this guy wanted. His stomach grew cold when he noticed the top six buttons of Steve’s shirt had been torn off, exposing most of his chest, and his belt had been undone.

               Bucky forced himself to take a deep breath and remain calm. They would leave and let Steve handle this. Steve could take this guy, no problem, but it was a whole other story when the guy had a gun shoved into Bruce’s mouth; they were teetering on the brink of disaster here, and Steve was trying to diffuse it.

               “Alright,” the man broke into a smile. He glanced up at Thor and Bucky and jerked his head towards the doorway. “You two, take a walk.”

               “Until you release the—,” Thor began, but his voice was cut off by a gunshot.

               For a split second, Bucky thought it had been Natasha returning to help them out, but Bruce’s skin becoming rapidly tinted with green begged to differ.

               The man let go of Bruce’s expanding form and stared up at the Hulk as the Big Guy spit the bullet out into his hand and eyed it distastefully. The man’s gun hung uselessly at his side and he was white as a sheet. “Fuck.”

              

 

               Two hours later, Bucky found himself again in Nick Fury’s office, staring down at his feet and trying to make himself look up at the others. Steve was next to him, as tense as he had been in the office and tugging the front of his shirt closed self-consciously (as if he had anything to be self-conscious about, Bucky snorted inwardly). Tony had taken off his battered Ironman suit after he’d managed to calm the Hulk down enough to corral him into one of the rooms S.H.I.E.L.D. had Hulk-proofed. Hulk had been furious, he’d been angrier than Bucky remembered seeing him during any of their missions, and Tony had barely arrived in time to stop him from smashing the man who’d shot him into pieces. Clint and Natasha were both a little roughed up, having been charged with the task of dragging the agent away and locking him up until they could get this all figured out. Thor just looked pissed, leaning back in his chair and clutching Molinjor in a grip so tight his knuckles were white. Bruce was watching them all warily from where he was again squeezed between Steve and Tony, tugging Thor’s thick red cloak tightly around himself. His hair was an absolute mess of tangled curls, and he looked as pale and tired as he always did after a transformation, but not any worse than usual. He actually still looked marginally, angry, Bucky reflected, watching as Bruce clenched and unclenched his fingers around the fabric of the side of Tony’s jacket.

               Fury had Coulson and Hill running damage control, giving him enough time to thoroughly chew them out for stepping out of line.

               “—can’t have a Hulk running around the base!” Fury shouted, directing his glare at Bruce. “Not only will we lose funding because we look like a bunch of damn idiots, you could have killed people.”

               Bruce bit the inside of his lip and ducked his head, not in shame, but in an effort to hide the latent anger lingering in his expression.

               “So someone better tell me what the fuck happened, and it better be a damn good excuse,” Fury snapped, glaring at all of them now.

               Thor spoke up when no one else made an effort to, his voice deep and weighted heavily. “Agent Tyler lured Captain Rogers away from the others and intended to force himself upon him. When we intervened, he instead threatened to shoot Doctor Banner. It seems he did.”

               Bruce nodded and winced slightly, his hand going to rub at the back of his head tenderly. Even if the Other Guy had taken the bullet, it must still have hurt like hell.

               “It figures the one time you’re wearing something that you didn’t dig out of a trashcan, this happens,” Tony complained under his breath, but Bucky couldn’t take him seriously when he was holding onto Bruce’s wrist and tenderly running his thumb over the pulse point.

               Bruce tried to force a weak smile, but it came off as more of a grimace. His gaze wandered to Steve, who hadn’t spoken a word since they’d been marshaled into Fury’s office, and his expression softened.

               Fury sighed deeply and ran his hand over his face. After a few long moments, he asked quietly. “Doctor Banner. Do you want to end up in a lab again?”

               “I have a feeling you don’t mean working in one,” Bruce muttered.

               Fury slammed his hands onto his desktop, sending papers flying off to drift to the floor. “You know damn well what I mean. I work my ass off to keep you from being locked up and used like a lab rat again. When things like this happen, it becomes significantly more difficult.”

               “I didn’t exactly choose to transform,” Bruce pointed out, his voice firm and laced with acid. “He had a gun in my mouth and he shot. I can’t stop the Other Guy from taking over in that kind of situation. It’s not a matter of losing control, it’s a matter of survival instincts.”

               “Your survival instincts are becoming a liability,” Fury growled lowly. “We’re lucky that Tony was here to calm you down before you killed Agent Tyler—“

               “I wish I had killed him,” Bruce snapped, his voice scarily calm. “If I had more of a say in what the Other Guy does, I would have.”

               On a list of things not to say to someone who already thinks you’re emotionally unstable, Bucky would have to say that was near the top of the list. Fury didn’t seem surprised by it at all, and just pressed on determinedly, “He will be subject to disciplinary action for what he attempted to do.”

               “Oh, disciplinary action?” Bruce repeated, raising his eyebrows. “Yeah, that’ll show him.”

               “Banner—,”Fury’s lip curled and he rolled his good eye.

               “You think that will stop him?” Bruce demanded, rising to his feet and holding the heavy cape around his shoulders. It was almost a foot too long, and the extra fabric pooled around his feet on the cold tile floor. “People like him don’t just give up, Fury. If it’s not Steve next time, it’ll be someone else. You can’t just cover this up and sweep it under the rug like it doesn’t matter! This isn’t some experiment gone wrong or mess up in weapon manufacturing that you can fix and ignore. You can’t just lie down and take this—“

               “I find that odd coming from you, Doctor,” Fury cut Bruce off, his voice louder and harsher. He injected as much disgust and venom as he could into Bruce’s title. “I think if anyone here can talk about lying down and taking it—“

               The little color that had been in Bruce’s face drained completely. He froze and stared at Fury for a long time without speaking, his dark eyes unreadable. Bucky felt Steve’s muscles bunch up even more where their thighs were pressed together. Tony’s expression became completely, scarily blank as he glared at Fury, and Bucky suspected he was already plotting a way to get back at him for talking to Bruce like that. Bruce cleared his throat and asked, his voice calm and measured. “What are you insinuating?”

               “I’m not insinuating anything,” Fury replied, his voice a little softer than it had been, but not losing its hard edge completely. “We’ve had you under surveillance. A man as smart as you are shouldn’t be making money on his knees.” Bruce’s jaw set and he determinedly studied the wall past Fury’s head. The start of a dark red blush crept up the side of his neck from underneath the folds of the cape. “We’re just trying to protect you, Banner. Do you think I want to see you being dissected, or selling yourself for a ferry ticket? You can do so much better, you can be so much better. You just have to keep it under control.”

               “Protect me,” Bruce snorted, turning his head away from Fury. “Thanks for that.”

               Fury sighed heavily and turned his attention to Steve, his expression sincere and apologetic. “Rogers, I apologize for Agent Tyler’s actions. He will be dealt with.”

               Steve nodded shortly, not meeting Fury’s eye. Steve’s gaze flickered up to Bruce, but his expression gave nothing away.

               “If I could just have you give me an account of what happened, you all can get the hell out of here,” Fury promised. Bruce had slid back into his heat next to Tony and was picking at his knuckles, pulling Thor’s cloak tighter around himself. Tony looked about ready to punch Nick Fury in the face, but miraculously held his tongue.

               Steve cleared his throat and spoke after a few long moments, his voice slightly hoarse. “He asked me to sign something for his kid. I said yes, of course, and followed him to his office to get a pen. I thought it would only take a couple minutes.” Steve paused and chewed on the inside of his bottom lip. His hands were clenched together tightly in his lap, and he stared down at them distantly. “He had a gun. He pulled it on me and I figured I could get it away from him if I got the right hold…” Steve ran his hand through his ruffled hair; Bucky noticed his fingers were shaking. “I…he was…”

               It was almost physical painful to watch Steve struggle to explain. One of Bucky’s favorite things to do Before had been to make Steve blush by making wildly inappropriate comments and references around him. It wasn’t that Steve was uncomfortable with sex, but he definitely believed that it was something private, and didn’t like to discuss it.

               Steve rose to his feet, his gaze locked on the floor. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

               He was out of the room before Fury could stop him. Bucky stood up to follow him, but was stopped before he could reach the door by a hand on his shoulder. He turned and looked down at Bruce impatiently. “What?”

               Bruce pushed by Bucky and replied quietly, “Let me handle this one.”

               Bucky couldn’t help the resentment that rose in his chest, but allowed Bruce to slip by him anyway. Bruce was right; Bucky was too whipped up to do this right now. Besides, Bruce knew what he was talking about when it came to these sort of things; and wasn’t that a sad thought? Bruce knew a lot about being taken advantage of, dealing with S.H.I.E.L.D., and being taken advantage of by S.H.I.E.L.D.

               Bruce disappeared into the hall after Steve, the cape trailing behind him on the tile floor. He managed to catch up to Steve halfway down the hall, tripping over the cape when he tried to skid to a stop. Steve caught him and righted him again, smoothing the cape down over his shoulders. They spoke for a while, but Bucky couldn’t tell what they were saying. As Bruce spoke, the hand that wasn’t holding the cloak together slipped from the folds of the material and reached out to hesitantly inspect the dark red marks on Steve’s chest. He could make out Bruce asking, “Is this okay?” and Steve nodding before they continued to talk softly.

               “—completely unnecessary,” Tony was saying, his voice clipped and snappish. Bucky glanced back at where he had risen to his feet to tell Fury off. “That stuff is in Bruce’s file, which is confidential, might I remind you, and you have no right to bring it up in here. If we didn’t owe you for getting Ross to cool off for now, I’d be suing your ass for this entire organization.” Tony held up his hand to stop the protest he saw forming on Fury’s lips. “And don’t think I can’t.”

               “Stark, I don’t care what you do so long as none of you breathe a word of this to the outside,” Fury said, his eye focused intensely on the window that gave the office a view of Bruce and Steve. “The last thing we need is publicity.”

               Tony snorted in disgust and turned on his heel, striding towards the door without bothering to reply. Thor was quick to follow, and Clint and Natasha fell into step after him. Bucky rose to his feet and trailed after them, unable to trust himself around Fury while he had this much rage boiling in his chest.

As he heard them approach, Steve glanced up from Bruce quickly for a moment before letting his gaze drop back to the smaller man. Bruce pulled the front of Steve’s shirt back together over the already healing marks and smoothed out the fabric, muttering something about he shouldn’t blame himself. Bucky noticed that Steve’s hand was resting casually on Bruce’s hip, tugging absentmindedly at the material of the cloak. Bucky wasn’t sure Steve even noticed he was doing it.

They broke apart, and Bruce immediately moved to pull the cloak more tightly around his shivering body.

               Tony didn’t even stop as they passed by them. He wrapped an arm around Bruce’s waist, gripped Steve’s shoulder tightly for a moment, and continued towards the elevator with Bruce leaning on him heavily.

               Bucky came to a stop in front of Steve and hesitated, unsure of what to say. I’m sorry? I should have let you handle it? Could you have handled it? He settled on sighing softly, “Steve…”

               “Don’t,” Steve’s hand was suddenly on his mouth, shushing him before he could go on. “Please, Buck. Just don’t.”

               Bucky reached up to wrap his fingers around Steve’s wrist and tug his hand off his mouth, but not letting go.

               “Okay,” Bucky said softly, running his thumb over the palm of Steve’s hand. “Let’s beat it, alright?”

               Steve rubbed the hand that wasn’t in Bucky’s over his mouth, looking slightly less lost than he had before. He nodded and straightened his back, something in his eyes shifting. “Good idea.”

               “I have those sometimes,” Bucky joked, guiding Steve towards the elevator and glancing around them furtively; the sooner they got out of that place, the better.

 

FOUR: You would put yourself at risk to save the people you love, regardless of your own safety.

               One second Bucky was standing in front of a fifteen-story building, the next he was being forcibly dragged away as its supports gave out and it was crumbling in on itself. Clint wrenched him back, trying to get him out of the way of the falling rubble, which was difficult with Bucky straining against his arms and yelling Steve’s name at the top of his lungs.

               “Barnes,” Clint grunted struggling to keep a hold on the bigger man. “C’mon, man, the Hulk was in there with him. He’ll be fine, he’s strong.”

               “Strong enough to handle fifteen stories of concrete and cement raining down on him?” Bucky snapped, tearing out of Clint’s grip and whirling around to glare at him.

Clint tightened his grip of his bow, ready to draw an arrow if Bucky snapped; Clint didn’t like the look in his eye. It was too close to how he’d looked when they’d brought him in. “I guess we’ll find out.”

 

 

Steve felt the floor shift under his weight and froze. He swallowed hard and carefully turned towards the stairway. He’d managed to get everyone out, and he was so close to getting out himself. He took a deep breath and shifted his feet carefully so he could get a running start and leap as far across the room as he could; he prayed he could make it to the door.

There was a loud crack from under his feet the second his weight shifted and he was suddenly standing in the middle of a hole in the floor. He flailed out wildly for a grip on the edge of the crumbling floor, and managed to sink his fingernails into the carpet. He had hauled himself halfway back up before he realized he had a bigger problem to contend with; the ceiling above him was caving in.

The whole building was going down, and he was stuck inside it.

He let out a deep breath and forced himself to let go of the tenuous grip he had on the edge of the floor, allowing himself to drop to the next level.

The impact of his feet on the floor was enough to shake the walls around him. Pieces of rubble fell through the hole above him and he could hear more crashing onto the streets below from the outside of the building. He dodged a falling chunk of cement and made a run for the window, but knew with sickening certainty that he would never get there before the whole ceiling collapsed and he was buried.

He held his shield above his head and braced himself for impact, crouching low to the ground, which was shifting under his feet with every small movement he made.

The impact never came. Steve was pushed flat to the ground and his vision was obscured by an expanse of green. He heard the ominous creaking and cracking sound above them, followed by the deafening sound of chunks of brick and cement raining down around them. The floor was struck by a particularly large piece of rubble and crumbled under Steve like a wet piece of tissue paper, sending him and the Hulk tumbling through two floors into the basement. Steve grunted when his back come in contact with the cement foundation. The Hulk hunched over him protectively, the same way he’d covered Bruce the last time he’d been caught by Ross and Tony had taken down the ceiling. Steve could hear the cement and brick impacting against the Hulk’s skin, he could feel the huge body above him flinching imperceptibly as it was battered with rubble, but the Hulk didn’t move from where he was wrapped around Steve.

Finally, the barrage slowed, and then stopped as the piles of rubble stopped falling and settled. Steve found himself curled on his side, Hulk’s heaving chest pressed against him and his huge arms braced on either side of Steve’s head. Steve rolled on to his back and gasped breathlessly, “Thanks.”

Hulk grunted and shifted slightly; brick and mortar scraped together above him. Steve peered under Hulk’s arm to evaluate their situation. His heart leapt to his throat when he couldn’t see a strip of sky through the piles of concrete weighing down on them. He let out a long breath and flopped back down, relaxing his body and rubbing his hands over his face. Hulk’s muscles were tense and Steve could tell he was straining to keep from collapsing on top of Steve with hundreds of pounds of rubble on his back.

Steve squeezed his eyes shut and prayed silently that the others would hurry.

 

 

“We’ve got them!” Coulson called, allowing a small smile to cross his lips when he saw a flash of green skin under the slab of concrete the crane had just lifted.

Bucky perked up immediately and felt Tony tense next to him. As they watched, Hulk’s muscles shifted and strained visibly under his skin, and Tony was on his feet in a second. “He’s going to change back.”

“He’s been the Hulk for six hours now,” Bucky agreed softly, watching with trepidation as the green skin seemed to fade and darken as Bruce struggled not to change back into himself.

The crane lifted another large chunk of the building from Hulk’s back. It was enough for Hulk to safely shift around until he had freed himself, clutching Steve to his chest and batting away the shifting rubble. He propelled himself to the edge of the building’s foundation and stumbled a few steps before flopping onto his back in the middle of the street.

Steve climbed off of the Hulk’s chest and fell onto his hands and knees next to him, hacking coughs racking his body as he tried to clear his lungs of all the brick and mortar dust he’d inhaled.

Hulk growled lowly and writhed in pain and discomfort as his bones and muscles shifted and twisted as he shrank back down into Bruce. In a matter of seconds, Bruce was left curled up on the cold, wet ground wearing nothing but the pants Tony had designed to stretch for when he transformed. He flopped back onto the cement next to Steve, his eyes squeezed closed and his chest heaving erratically. Steve reached over to rest a hand on the side of Bruce’s neck and tugged the battered man closer to him to press their foreheads together.

As Bucky approached them, he heard Steve mumbling gratefully, “Thank you so much, Bruce, you saved my life…”

Bruce nodded, unable to speak to reply, and clutched the side of Steve’s blue suit tightly in his calloused fingers.

Bucky froze and watched them for a moment, struck by the intimacy of the touches and their closeness. Tony gave him an odd look and jabbed his side to get him to start walking again.

When he felt Bucky at his side, Steve let go of Bruce and rolled onto his back to look up at his friend. Bucky grinned, trying not to let the remnants of his fear and worry show in his smile, and offered Steve his hand.

Steve took it and let Bucky haul him to his feet. He stumbled a little bit when he stood, catching himself against Bucky’s chest before he could fall. Bucky gripped his hips to help steady him, trying to ignore the irritation and betrayal churning in his chest. He gripped Steve’s shoulder and said gruffly, “Thank God you’re alright.”

Tony, meanwhile, was kneeling next to Bruce and talking to him in an effort to keep Bruce awake until he could assess any damage done to the exhausted man. He cupped Bruce’s cheek and ran his thumb over his cheekbone. “Bruce, you’ve got to stay awake for a minute. Are you hurt?”

Bruce shook his head and nuzzled his nose against Tony’s thigh. He pressed his forehead against Tony’s worn jeans and mumbled softly, “’M fine. J’s…j’s tired…”

“That’s not surprising,” Tony muttered, rubbing small circles on Bruce’s back. “I’ll get the suit back on and carry you back to the Tower, Princess.”

His eyes remained closed, but the corner of Bruce’s lips curled into a reluctant smile.

 

 

FIVE: You both hate bullies.

               Bucky jumped when a siren blared somewhere down the street behind them, his shoulder bumping against Steve’s chest. He hurriedly straightened up and cleared his throat, hoping no one had noticed. He hadn’t quite gotten used to how loud everything was in New York now. He could barely hear himself think when he walked down the street, barraged by the sound of car horns, wailing sirens, people, and loud, pounding music playing from the open doors of the stores that lined the sidewalks.

               Steve’s hand rested on his elbow for a fraction of a second to help him regain his balance; Bucky wasn’t a hundred percent sure he’d really felt it, or if he’d just imagined it.

               Clint had somehow managed to convince them all to leave the Tower and take a walk to some restaurant he’d had been raving about all week. Tony had called for a car, but Thor had suggested they walk instead. Bucky figured Thor was more enamored with this fast paced, unfamiliar world than he was.

               Tony hadn’t put up as much of a fight as Bucky expected, and he actually seemed almost content walking on the sidewalk with his hands shoved into the pockets of his grease stained workshop jeans. His shoulder brushed Bruce’s as he walked, though he made no move to actually hold Bruce’s hand. Bucky had noticed that Bruce shrunk away from Stark’s touch in public and glanced around furtively, as if he expected someone to call them on it. Things may have gotten better since 1942, but they sure as hell weren’t perfect.

               Bucky realized suddenly that he didn’t feel Steve walking next to him anymore. He stopped and turned around, searching the sidewalk for some sign of his best friend, sure he would be easy to spot above the thick crowd.

               “What is it?” Natasha asked, noticing Bucky had stopped. She realized Steve wasn’t there anymore and pursed her lips. “Where’d Steve go?”

               Tony and Bruce exchanged a fleeting glance before turning to help pick Steve out of the crowd. Thor frowned, thin lines appearing around his mouth, and said, “He is back in that lot of c-cars.” Thor stumbled over the unfamiliar word, his frown deepening when he stuttered. “He seems to be intent of approaching an angry looking man.”

               Bucky cursed under his breath and began pushing through the crowd, moving against the current of people. After a few strategically placed elbows and apologetic smiles, Bucky broke free of the sea of people and stumbled into the parking lot, feeling like he had just surfaced for air after being trapped underwater for too long. He pressed on towards Steve, knowing the others would follow.

               A man was standing next to the back of his car, jabbing his finger angrily at a dent in the bumper that undoubtedly had come from the guardrail next to where it was parked. He was screaming at the teenager in front of him, who Bucky assumed was his son, shoving the kid’s chest and crowding him against the back of the car aggressively. “…fucking idiot, what the hell did I tell you? How could you be this fucking stupid?”

               “Dad, I…” the kid tried to take a step back, but found his escape route blocked by the solid metal of the car behind him. “I didn’t mean…”

               “You didn’t mean to?” the man demanded mockingly, spitting into the kid’s face. “Don’t you fucking dare tell me you didn’t mean to, you little bastard, I swear if—“

               “Excuse me, sir?” Steve cut the man off, gripping his shoulder and whirling the man around to face him. Bucky could tell Steve was pissed, and he couldn’t blame him. Seeing parents push their kids around always got his blood boiling, too. He’d seen enough of that in the orphanages and foster homes he and Steve had ended up in when they were younger. “I would appreciate if you took a second to step away and calm down.”

               “And who the fuck are you to tell me that?” the man sneered, shoving Steve away as hard as he could. His lip twitched when he felt the solid muscle of Steve’s chest, but he didn’t back down. “He’s my kid; I’ll do what I want with him.”

               Steve pursed his lips tightly. “That’s not exactly how it works anymore.”

               “You think you can just come over here and tell me how to handle my own son?” the man yelled, pushing Steve’s chest again, harder this time. Steve didn’t budge. “I know my rights, you sonofabitch.”

               “He’s entitled to the same human rights you are,” Steve replied sharply, his eyes hardening and his voice rising slightly. He repeated slowly and firmly in his Captain America Voice, “I think you need to step away.”

               The kid winced and spoke up hesitantly, looking like he desperately wished Steve would just leave it alone, “Sir, really, it’s okay, he was just—“

               “You need to shut the fuck up,” the man turned on his heel and lashed out violently towards his cringing son.

               Instead of connecting with his son’s face, his blow landed on Bruce’s forearm. Bruce had managed to slip smoothly between the furious, raging man and his cowering son before he could hit the kid. Bruce eyed the man coolly and dropped his arm to his side, balling his hands into fists. A muscle in his jaw was working hard, and Bucky could tell he was working hard not to get angry.

               “I’m sick of you people interfering where it isn’t your fucking business,” the man growled, his upper lip curling as he examined Bruce with disgust written on his features. “Get out of the way.”

               Bruce shook his head, his dark eyes meeting the taller man’s challengingly. He cocked an eyebrow and said in a voice that was dangerously low and even, “If you want to hit someone, hit me.”

               “What?” the man squinted down at Bruce, taken aback by the mild man’s words.

               Bruce repeated himself, not dropping eye contact and speaking slowly and clearly. “I said, if you want to hit someone, hit me.” Bruce paused and added, “Unless you’d rather not take someone your own size.”

               The man’s face flushed with anger and he hauled back again, striking Bruce across the face. Tony moved to step in immediately, but hesitated when he saw the blazing look of determination and anger in Bruce’s eyes.

               Bruce was barely knocked off balance by the blow. He grabbed the front of the man’s shirt and yanked him closer, until their faces were inches apart, and growled lowly, “Feel like more of a man now?”

               The man glared at Bruce, but didn’t reply, thrown off guard by Bruce’s actions.

               The anger seemed to suddenly drain completely from Bruce’s body. He sighed softly and let of of the man, shoving his away and rubbing his hands on his thighs like the man’s clothes had left dirt on them. He turned to the terrified kid and offered a hesitant smile.

               The kid swallowed hard and looked up at Bruce with a mixture of awe, confusion, and fear in his eyes. He didn’t seem to know what to say, or how to react.

               Bruce rubbed the back of his neck and said quietly, “It’s easier when you stop lying for him.”

               The boy blinked at Bruce blankly, his mouth half open as he gazed up at the taller man. Bruce ran his hand though his hair to push it out of his face and turned back towards the others. He scrubbed his hand over his mouth nervously. “I…we should go.”

               When he was close enough, Bruce reached out to grip Tony’s hand and lace their fingers together tightly. Tony sucked in a short breath and glared at the man as Bruce tugged him away from the gaping father and son, anger simmering in his dark eyes. He turned to Bruce and began, “I could have Child Services here in ten minutes.”

               Bruce glanced up at Tony and shrugged, shaking his head. “It doesn’t matter if they come before he’s ready to tell them. It won’t matter. Not if he’s going to lie for his dad.”

               “I do not understand why he would do such a thing,” Thor said, his eyebrows drawing together in confusion. He glanced back at them, clearly not understanding any better than Bucky did.

               “I did,” Bruce replied quietly, his gaze intently focused on the ground in front of him.

               Bucky’s stomach dropped and his gaze flew up from the concrete sidewalk to meet Steve’s. That was what Steve had meant when he talked about what hadn’t been in Bruce’s file. Steve looked away from him, his blue eyes still filled with anger and frustration.

               Bruce pulled in a deep breath before finishing softly, “People shouldn’t hit their kids.”

               The corner of Steve’s mouth tightened and his hand rested on Bruce’s shoulder for a moment before dropping to his side again. Bucky bit his lip and grimaced. Steve had always had the same problem with getting involved. Most of the guys he got in fights with could snap him like a twig, but he could never give up the chance to help someone who was being picked on by guys bigger than him. Now he also had Bruce to keep track of, who had his own reasons for stepping in. What he did had been stupid and reckless and everything Bucky should have expected from Bruce after seeing him put himself in harm’s way for all of them more times than he cared to count.

               Bucky didn’t miss the way Bruce was determinedly not looking back over his shoulder at the father and son, as if he was afraid of what he’d see if he did.

              

              

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

+ONE

 

               Bucky glared at the empty seats across from him and viciously stabbed his fork into his chicken. Steve and Bruce were both gone, downtown together at some art museum, and if that didn’t confirm every suspicion Bucky had about their relationship, he didn’t know what else would.

               He wasn’t even sure if Steve remembered the relationship they’d had before everything had gone to hell. He’d held Steve through every cold, every fever, every asthma attack; he’d bandaged up dozens and dozens of wounds Steve had gotten in fights; he’d been Steve’s first kiss. Steve’s smile made Bucky’s heart twist and sent a feeling of warmth through Bucky’s chest. Steve made sure Bucky ate, he curled up against Bucky’s back and stroked his hair when Bucky woke up from a nightmare, he didn’t expect Bucky to protect him, not even when he was small and ninety pounds (and so, so fragile), because he was too busy trying to protect Bucky.

               Bucky dropped his fork onto his plate, allowing it to land with a loud clatter. He snatched his plate form the table and started to stand, too irritated to finish eating.

               “My God, Barnes,” Stark snapped, dropping his feet from where they’d been kicked up on the living room table. “What the fuck is your problem? I can’t think with you banging around in there.”

               “Nothing is the problem,” Bucky spit, setting his plate in the sink with an exaggerated amount of care. Clint raised an eyebrow at Bucky from his perch on the counter where he was devouring a ham sandwich. Bucky glared at him and turned away. “What time is it?”

               “Eleven,” Natasha called from her spot on the couch, glancing at her watch.

               “Eleven?” Bucky repeated incredulously. Steve and Bruce had left at five; how did it take six hours to go look at some paintings?

               “What, past your bedtime?” Tony snarked without looking up from whatever he was working on on his tablet.

               Bucky pursed his lips and forced his voice to sound as calm and offhand as possible. “I just thought…Steve and Bruce have been gone awhile.”

               “They both take forever in museums,” Clint shrugged, leaping off the counter to join Natasha on the couch. He lifted her legs out of the way, plopped down next to her, and placed them back over his thighs. “Talking about the style and the cultural impact and blah, blah, blah…that’s why we send them by themselves.”

               Bucky stuck his tongue against the inside of his cheek, not appeased.

               “They’re probably having dinner,” Natasha flicked a page in her book and readjusted on the couch to accommodate Clint. “Steve likes trying all the ethnic food around here and Bruce knows what it all is.”

               Bucky felt a wave of anger and jealousy wash over his heart, leaving it tight and aching. “Oh.”

               Tony sighed and dropped his tablet next to him on the couch. He motioned for Bucky to come closer, looking irritated and exasperated. “Come here,” he directed gruffly. Bucky hesitantly moved to the chair across from Tony, not liking the way Tony was ordering him around, but complying for the moment. Tony readjusted himself on the couch so he was sitting cross-legged and meeting Bucky’s gaze across the gap between their seats. “Listen, Barnes. You need to calm down. Rogers and Bruce are friends. _Friends_. That’s it.”

               “How can you say that?” Bucky demanded incredulously. “You’ve seen them, Stark! How many people does Bruce let touch him like that, how many people does Bruce talk to like that? Your boyfriend is cheating on you and you’re too blind to see what’s going on.”

               Tony just looked vaguely amused at Bucky’s passionate outburst, which made Bucky want to punch him in the face more than he usually did. “I promise, Bruce and Steve are not together. They just get along.  Why would Bruce give up all this anyway?” He motioned at himself. “Not to say Steve isn’t passably attractive. Actually, if Bruce was cheating on me with Steve, maybe I could get in on their—“

               “Tony,” Clint snapped, cutting him off sharply. “You suck at explaining things.” He turned to Bucky and took over. “I think what Tony is trying to say is that Steve and Bruce have a lot in common.”

               Bucky raised an eyebrow doubtfully.

               Thor spoke up from where he was flopped on the floor in front of Tony’s couch, his voice warm and reassuring, “You must simply look closer, friend. Their time as children was unpleasant. They both were given their powers in a laboratory. We all have seen how they struggle with such knowledge that they were created to be no more than mere weapons. S.H.I.E.L.D. relentlessly threatens to hold them against their will to be experimented on, and Director Fury does not always treat them with the respect they have thus far earned. They both feel wanted for nothing more than their powers, their physical selves, not for who they are as people.” Thor shrugged and kept his sincere gaze level with Bucky’s.

               “It’s not the much of a leap,” Clint commented softly, looking down at his hands.

               Bucky dropped his head into his hands, trying to take in everything Thor had explained. He had a point; maybe they did have some things in common. Bucky imagined that they must have felt some sense of companionship in the knowledge that they were both lab experiments, and it had grown from there. They both liked art, apparently, which was probably enough for Steve to build a friendship in and of itself. Bucky supposed he couldn’t begrudge Steve this relationship—friendship—if it meant he was happy. Bruce obviously cared for him, was obviously very protective of him, as much as he pretended not to be attached to anybody, and having the Hulk on your side was always a plus.

               Bucky looked up when he felt a hand on his arm and found himself looking into Natasha’s eyes. She smiled almost imperceptibly at him and suggested, “I think you should talk to Steve about this. You two have been dancing around each other for weeks.” She removed her hand and turned to walk towards the kitchen. She paused halfway there, as if she suddenly remembered something, and turned back to him. “Oh, and if you hurt their friendship in any way, I will hurt you. This is good for both of them, and I’d hate to see you wreck it.”

               Tony twitched an eyebrow in agreement, nodding slowly. “Seconded.”

               Clint didn’t say anything, but Bucky read the silent threat in his eyes.

               Bucky rose to his feet and headed towards the hallway. He’d wait for Steve in his bedroom.

               They needed to talk.

 

 

               Bucky perched on Steve’s bed and looked around his room. He’d been in there before, but he’d never really looked around closely at the personal touches Steve had added to the room. He’d been too busy focusing on not throwing Steve down onto his white sheets and kissing him until he remembered everything they’d done together.

               The walls were a muted shade of blue, and the wooden furniture was light oak. Steve’s bed was made impeccably, of course, and his clothes were neatly hung in his closet or folded and put away in his drawers. The sweater Bruce had worn when he’d gone to visit his mother’s grave was thrown over the armchair in the corner of the room.

               Bucky’s gaze wandered around the room until they fell on Steve’s sketchbook. He’d left it out on his bedside table, next to his alarm clock and a water glass. He reached over and dragged the heavy notepad into his lap, flipping it open to somewhere near the middle.

               The first picture was of Clint and Natasha, standing next to each other dressed in their civilian clothing. Natasha was up on her toes to whisper something in to Clint, and Clint’s head was tilted so her mouth was close to his ear. He was smiling slightly, amused by whatever she was saying. Her hand was brushing his hip, speaking of their easy physicality with each other.

               He flipped the page. The next was a picture of Clint, perched in the rafters of one of the S.H.I.E.L.D. buildings, watching something going on below him. His arms were wrapped around the bar in front of him, his muscles tense. Steve had even included the prominent vein that stood out and wrapped around Clint’s arm. He looked watchful, intent, and focused; this wasn’t Clint lounging on the couch in the Tower, this was Clint on a mission.

               The next page was Thor sitting at the kitchen table, his head thrown back as he laughed. Bucky hadn’t gotten much of a chance to get to know Thor yet, but he seemed like an honest, good hearted, stupidly loyal man. Norse god, not man, Bucky corrected himself. He sensed something untouchably sad in Thor, but he only caught fleeting glances of it. He could see the darkness of regret in Thor’s eyes when Thor was lost in thought occasionally, but it always disappeared the second Thor noticed him watching. Thor’s hair fell in thick waves over his shoulders and his eyes shone through the dull lines of the pencil, giving him an aura of mirth and happiness.

               Tony and Bruce were on the next page. They were in a lab Bucky didn’t recognize. Tony was perched on the counter, peering at something out of the range of the paper. He had a small bag in one hand and Steve had somehow managed to capture that infuriating, superior expression Tony got when he was on a tangent. Bruce was standing behind him, arms crossed over his chest and head ducked slightly. His curls fell into his face, but he was smiling slightly, despite his obvious mild discomfort. Bucky ran his fingers over the page, noting the way Bruce’s eyes were on Tony and that the ever present lines of worry were gone from between his eyebrows.

               The next picture was Tony in the Ironman suit, falling from the sky. The frantic lines, the heavy shading, the dark pencil marks all spoke of a horrible sense of desperation. _I couldn’t save him_ , they said. _I couldn’t catch him, too late, too late…_ Bucky had heard the story from Thor, who spoke with awe and trepidation of how Hulk had caught Tony and broken his fall. Of course Steve would have felt helpless.

               The last picture in the book was one of Bruce. He was asleep, curled up on his side with white sheets pooled around his waist. Bucky peered more closely at the picture, trying to make out what was making up the texture on Bruce’s skin. They were scars; Bucky drew in a sharp breath and traced his fingers over the thin white lines that curled over Bruce’s chest and around his sides. One particularly nasty scar started at the base of his neck, wound over his stomach, and disappeared below the sheets. Bucky shuddered as he traced it with his finger; that looked like it had to hurt. Bruce’s hair fell over his face and the pillowcase in waves of thick curls, and his expression was more relaxed than Bucky had ever seen him.

               “He’d Hulked out twice in one day.”

               Steve’s voice came from the doorway and Bucky glanced up to see him leaning against the doorframe, watching him flip through the book. When Bucky looked up at him, he stepped into the room, tugging the door closed behind him. He kept talking as he made his way to the bed, peeling off his jacket and tossing it into the chair with Bruce’s sweater. “There was an attack in the morning we got called out to stop, and someone had planted a bomb in the car on our way back to the Tower.” Steve set down on the bed next to Bucky, reaching out for the sketchbook laid on the bed between them. “He slept for twenty eight hours. We had to wake him up six times and keep him awake long enough to eat a full meal each time so he had enough nutrients to make up for the energy he’d expended.” Steve pursed his lips and stared at the picture for a minute. “I’d never seen so many scars on a person before.”

               Bucky nodded in agreement, running his fingers over the rough sides of the pages of the sketchbook. He cleared his throat and asked softly, “How was the museum?”

               “It was great,” Steve grinned, raking a hand through his hair. “It was a whole display of art from 1900 to 1950. It was amazing, Bucky. These people drew things we saw, things we were actually looking at. It was…” Steve let out a deep breath and picked at the comforter. “It was…it was an odd feeling.”

               “It can be disconcerting,” Bucky agreed. That had to be the understatement of the year.

               Steve nodded in agreement and lifted his eye to meet Bucky’s, hitting Bucky full force with his warm, inquisitive blue gaze. “Were you waiting in here for a reason or did you get lost on the way to your room?”

               Bucky sucked in a deep breath and began slowly, “I thought…we needed to talk. About us. About our relationship. I…am I doing something wrong here?”

               “What do you mean?” Steve asked, his eyebrows drawing together in confusion.

Bucky pushed himself up and began pacing back and forth at the foot of Steve’s bed, running his hands through his hair irritably. “Do you ever remember us Before?”

Steve didn’t reply, instead stared down at his hands blankly.

Bucky approached the bed again and slammed his hands down on the edge of the bed, shaking the mattress. “Damn it, Steve, I’ve tried to be subtle, I’ve tried to figure it out on my own, but I can’t tell what’s going through your mind, not when it comes to that...”

“To what, Bucky?” Steve asked softly, looking up at his best friend.

Bucky searched Steve’s gaze for some indication of what Steve wanted, of what he was expected to do, before his gaze dropped to Steve’s slightly parted lips. “Ah, hell.”

Bucky surged forward and pressed his lips against Steve’s. Steve grabbed the front of his shirt to keep Bucky from toppling over and Bucky felt him smile against his mouth before he kissed him back. It was awkward and sloppy and familiar and Bucky felt like he wanted to laugh and cry because this was it, this was Steve, this was them.

Bucky overbalanced and fell onto Steve, shifting to straddle Steve’s hips so he wasn’t crushing him and look down at him, their foreheads touching. He could feel Steve’s breath against his lips; he smiled. “You smell like chocolate.”

“I like chocolate,” Steve replied, his indignant tone negated by his goofy smile. “Just because we couldn’t afford it…”

“I got it for you when I could,” Bucky closed his eyes and just relaxed against Steve, a warm, happy feeling spreading through his chest. It felt so good just to be this close to him again, even if he hadn’t gotten quite used to Steve’s supersoldeir body in the little time they’d had between his transformation and Bucky’s fall. “You loved me anyway.”

“Of course I do, you sap,” Steve muttered, pulling Bucky back down to kiss him again.

 

 

               Steve was, predictably, awake before Bucky. He slipped out of the bed without waking him, smiling a little when Bucky snorted and rolled onto his side, yanking the blankets back up around him. Steve rolled his eyes and restrained himself from reaching out to ruffle Bucky’s hair. He padded down the hallway and into the kitchen, unsurprised to find Bruce there, hunched over a mug of tea and scrutinizing a diagram on the table in front of him.

               He glanced up when Steve walked in and smiled in greeting. “Morning.”

               “Morning,” Steve went to the fridge and pulled out the carton of eggs and a jug of orange juice. He set them on the counter to dig through the cupboard for a pan. “How do you want your eggs?”

               Bruce peered at Steve from over his glasses, cocking an eyebrow. Steve raised his eyebrows innocently and waited for a response. Bruce rolled his eyes and replied, “Scrambled is fine.”

               Steve cracked four eggs into a glass bowl and whipped them with a fork. Bruce turned a page of his diagrams and Steve poured the eggs into the pan, humming to himself under his breath. Steve loved mornings where it was only him and Bruce in the kitchen. The others were either always talking or demanding his attention; Bruce was just happy to let Steve cook while he read his paper, filling the kitchen with companionable silence.

               Steve set a plate down in front of Bruce and took a seat across from him with his own and a glass of juice. Bruce took his glasses off, slipping them into his pocket, and set the blueprints he was studying aside. Steve tucked into his eggs, not noticing that Bruce was watching him carefully.

               After a few minutes, Steve felt Bruce’s eyes on him. He looked up and raised an eyebrow. “What?”

               “You finally talked to Bucky last night?” Bruce asked.

               Steve couldn’t help the small smile that crossed his lips. He ducked his head over his plate, knowing that Bruce had already seen the grin. “Yeah. I found him looking through my sketchbook when we came home last night. He asked me if I remembered.”

               “I told you he was ready,” Bruce pointed out, smiling at the light flush in Steve’s cheeks. “You should have seen how he was looking at you when they dug us out of that collapsed building.”

               Red crept up the back of Steve’s neck and he kicked the floor under the table bashfully. It was one of those moments where Bruce was reminded that even though Steve had been born in 1922 and acted so much older, he was physically barley twenty-five.

               “I assume I’ll be invited to the wedding,” Bruce picked up his fork and took a bite of eggs.

               Steve choked on his food. Bruce waited patiently for him to stop coughing and pushed his glass of juice toward him. Steve took a large gulp and glared at Bruce with watery eyes. “Don’t do that.”

               Bruce shrugged innocently. “He’s a nice guy.”

               Steve cocked his head to the side in agreement. “He also an oblivious goofball who hogs the blankets and can be emotionally volatile.”

               “Look at the people you live with,” Bruce pointed out, looking up at Steve through the errant curls falling into his eyes and grinning slightly. Steve took a second to think about the other people in the Tower; an egotistical billionaire who desperately tried to push away the people he cared about; an all- powerful Norse god who had lost his family and was trying not to let it tear him apart; two assassins haunted by nightmares of the people they’d killed in the name of national security; and a hunted, abused man who constantly had to keep control of his anger because the results if he didn’t could be catastrophic. “It seems to be what you gravitate towards.”

               Steve met Bruce’s lopsided grin with an honest, genuine smile and nodded shortly.

               Clint’s voice broke the calm atmosphere in the kitchen when it split through the entire floor as he shrieked, irritably, “THOR, I SWEAR TO GOD, IF I FIND ONE MORE CLUMP OF BLONE HAIR IN MY BRUSH I WILL CHOP YOUR HAIR OFF WHILE YOU SLEEP!”

               “HEY, SOME OF US NORMAL PEOPLE ARE STILL TRYING TO GET SOME FUCKING SLEEP, JACKASS!”

               “I MEANT NO DISRESPECT, AGENT BARTON. AGENT ROMANOFF ASSURED ME—“

               “NATASHA!”

               “STEVE, YOUR FRIENDS ARE A BUNCH OF LOUDMOUTH IDIOTS!”

               Bruce calmly took a sip of his tea, giving no indication he’d heard the shouting. Steve dropped his head in his hands and sighed, fighting the smile threatening to curl to corners of his lips upwards. “I guess so.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first foray into the Avengers, so excuse me for characterization and voice errors. This has been sitting on my laptop for three weeks now, so I just wanted to get it out.
> 
> Please, please review if you have a second! I'd love to hear what you think:)
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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